Sigmund Freud on phylogenic memory

It is a widespread misconception that Sigmund Freud talks of phylogenic heritage only in his late work Der Mann Moses und die monotheistische Religion [1937], where he deals with collective Jewish identity. Striking remarks can already be found in Das Ich und das Es [1923] (which starts his second topography), but the idea already surfaces during the period of his first topography in Das Unbewußte [1915] and in Totem und Tabu [1912]. There is unambiguous evidence that Freud supplemented the mechanism of social inheritance based on individual memory about ones life history – the key paradigm of contemporary psychoanalysis – with hereditary ones. Freud’s statements on this matter are remarkable as I will demonstrate with extensive quotes, though in the end one wishes that Freud had been more elaborate with his concept.